Marry-Go-Round
A colleague of mine got married recently. An entire swarm of IT company employees, enthralled at the prospect of free food descended upon the wedding, and made the people who actually served the food reduce their serving size, ensuring that all of us genuine invitees that knew the groom as well as the bride were actually deprived of the food that was in high demand.
He passed out of college the same time as I did, and is of my age. His wife is also his contemporary, age-wise. I wish them the very best for their future lives together.
This post is not centered around them, or as usual, around anything or anyone in general.
A lot of people I know are getting married left, right and center - friends, colleagues, cousins that fall in the same age bracket as me, some people younger and so on and so forth.
In this entire sea of marital madness, I feel a little overwhelmed by my absolute lack of prospects. Its not like I want to get married in the immediate future, but the very fact that all these people are taking the marital plunge is just bringing me closer to realizing that, someday, somehow, I will also need to get married to some unfortunate woman, who will be made to read all my blogposts AND livejournal entries from the beginning onwards, and will be quizzed about it, and will be accepted ONLY after she answers all my quiz questions to a reasonable degree of success. In the spirit of fairness, I will be more than happy to watch my favourite football games, movies and TV shows with headphones on if it gets too late in the night.
In conversation with a few friends, I came up with a marriage function model that will make the entire exercise so much more nicer for the blessed couple. It involves a certain degree of management and a few processes to be put into place, but once implemented, it is guaranteed to work like a charm.
In this dream wedding function, guests are supposed to pass through a certain number of barriers before they can get into the hall. The first barrier is where their names will be cross-referenced with a guest list, so that they can be admitted into the hall. In the event that their names are not present, they may be allowed within if they either possess a good wedding gift, or are willing to buy one inside. The guests that don't fulfill this criteria will, regretfully, have to go to some other wedding.
The next barrier is based on the sort of wedding presents that the guests have along with them. Those that have presents will be admitted to the third barrier, while those without gifts are given the option of purchasing a gift voucher of their choice, counters for which will be present at the second barrier, to make the process so much more smoother. Those guests wishing to go into the hall empty-handed, must, regretfully, have to go to some other wedding.
After ensuring that all guests have presents, they are further segregated into separate queues based on the sort of gifts they have. A trusted bunch of people, close to the bride and/or groom can evaluate the presents and assign them ratings, depending on how the bride and groom would like their presents to be. The default defining criteria in this case would be the monetary value of the gifts, though utility and sentimental value may be other criteria as well. The latter parameters would be adopted by those who don't believe that money can buy them love.
Once the presents are evaluated, the guests are then made to stand in line or made to step into specific areas reserved for them, based on the ratings given to the presents. The ones that have presents rated lower, will get to see the blessed couple from a slight distance, and be fed some decent food, that will just about fill their stomachs, after which they will be given a return gift, that is again determined by their present, and then will be escorted to the parking lot.
The cooler gifters will be privileged enough to go meet the bride and groom, shake them by the hand and get photographs clicked. They can purchase these photos later on for a nominal sum, so that the photographer gets to make his cut. They will be fed lavishly and will be given better treatment vis-a-vis the uncool gifters, after which, they too will get their return gifts after which valets will retrieve their cars for them to see them off.
This is not a model that I will be using for my wedding however, because I am a poor cheap guy and so are most of the people I know and like a lot. The like a lot part was added to soften the blow of having cast aspersions on your spending abilities, but I know it works anyway.
If you like this idea, please feel free to contact me for more such wonderful and innovative concepts to make your life better, and I shall be more than glad to oblige.
He passed out of college the same time as I did, and is of my age. His wife is also his contemporary, age-wise. I wish them the very best for their future lives together.
This post is not centered around them, or as usual, around anything or anyone in general.
A lot of people I know are getting married left, right and center - friends, colleagues, cousins that fall in the same age bracket as me, some people younger and so on and so forth.
In this entire sea of marital madness, I feel a little overwhelmed by my absolute lack of prospects. Its not like I want to get married in the immediate future, but the very fact that all these people are taking the marital plunge is just bringing me closer to realizing that, someday, somehow, I will also need to get married to some unfortunate woman, who will be made to read all my blogposts AND livejournal entries from the beginning onwards, and will be quizzed about it, and will be accepted ONLY after she answers all my quiz questions to a reasonable degree of success. In the spirit of fairness, I will be more than happy to watch my favourite football games, movies and TV shows with headphones on if it gets too late in the night.
In conversation with a few friends, I came up with a marriage function model that will make the entire exercise so much more nicer for the blessed couple. It involves a certain degree of management and a few processes to be put into place, but once implemented, it is guaranteed to work like a charm.
In this dream wedding function, guests are supposed to pass through a certain number of barriers before they can get into the hall. The first barrier is where their names will be cross-referenced with a guest list, so that they can be admitted into the hall. In the event that their names are not present, they may be allowed within if they either possess a good wedding gift, or are willing to buy one inside. The guests that don't fulfill this criteria will, regretfully, have to go to some other wedding.
The next barrier is based on the sort of wedding presents that the guests have along with them. Those that have presents will be admitted to the third barrier, while those without gifts are given the option of purchasing a gift voucher of their choice, counters for which will be present at the second barrier, to make the process so much more smoother. Those guests wishing to go into the hall empty-handed, must, regretfully, have to go to some other wedding.
After ensuring that all guests have presents, they are further segregated into separate queues based on the sort of gifts they have. A trusted bunch of people, close to the bride and/or groom can evaluate the presents and assign them ratings, depending on how the bride and groom would like their presents to be. The default defining criteria in this case would be the monetary value of the gifts, though utility and sentimental value may be other criteria as well. The latter parameters would be adopted by those who don't believe that money can buy them love.
Once the presents are evaluated, the guests are then made to stand in line or made to step into specific areas reserved for them, based on the ratings given to the presents. The ones that have presents rated lower, will get to see the blessed couple from a slight distance, and be fed some decent food, that will just about fill their stomachs, after which they will be given a return gift, that is again determined by their present, and then will be escorted to the parking lot.
The cooler gifters will be privileged enough to go meet the bride and groom, shake them by the hand and get photographs clicked. They can purchase these photos later on for a nominal sum, so that the photographer gets to make his cut. They will be fed lavishly and will be given better treatment vis-a-vis the uncool gifters, after which, they too will get their return gifts after which valets will retrieve their cars for them to see them off.
This is not a model that I will be using for my wedding however, because I am a poor cheap guy and so are most of the people I know and like a lot. The like a lot part was added to soften the blow of having cast aspersions on your spending abilities, but I know it works anyway.
If you like this idea, please feel free to contact me for more such wonderful and innovative concepts to make your life better, and I shall be more than glad to oblige.
posted by Hari Shenoy @ 4:25 AM
11 Comments:
Clearly, ideas ahead of our times. I'd propose an amendment: In the spirit of freeloading, some couples may choose to have 50 to 60 people of lower economic strata (read hostel, grad students, etc) come in for free and get to see the couple at close quarters, get pics, get lavish food, and leave. They might even be allowed to walk like Egyptians in the hall.
@ Vinayak - agreement. But please to be responding on gtalk so we can carry out this discussion further. Needless to say, you also didn't mention that these lower economic strata people walking like Egyptians also took memorable shots of the wedding in question :)
good stuff. n yeah thanx for not implementing for your wedding, otherwise i might've been forced to not attend, cheap as i am. btw what about getting guests who don't finish their food to feed it to poor kids, who also will get food surplus after entire feast? pls put up more ideas like this.
In my case none of this would work, because the relatives, remote and otherwise, of a South Indian Tamilian Brahmin bride are outside all rules.
:) Very funny post, though. Glad you're posting regularly again!
@ Aslan - dude, lemme even think about putting shaadi, then the implementation can be worked on. Your idea is nice, but its hajjar social worker stuff, not for someone hedonistic and self-centered like yours truly.
@ Tharunya - glad to be back posting. You should have your own rule book, in that case :)
wonderful idea.....i would give some hints on the invitation as to what kind of gifts i would like....a B&O would surely be welcome!!!
Dude, Quit Mindtree i say. U are wasting ur self there. become an entrepreuner.......!!!! and yes, Happy B'day!!!!!!!!!!!
Hmmph. Seems like I spoke too soon.
Where have you vanished to?
Hey Hari,
Grow up dude. You are still a kid as I can see from your blog. Or maybe when you get married, your eyes will open and you will be forced to grow up. Its not child's play. Decently think what you are doing before you get into arranged marriage.
Exercise your freedom of choice. Go find someone who loves you and you love. If you dont do it, you will get fucked in the arse.
Regards,
Your well-wisher.
read 'we' from vladimir zamyatin
and lend a copy to me too
so u'll be earning back all the money u put into the fiasco(which is what weddings are!)go to the nearest temple and feed a few hungry kids.of course there is no profit whatsoever but u might just earn urself some good karma!:)
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